il suo cuore è il cuore di myr
by omens
Summary: Maybe these people, who clearly love her, can help. Justin/Alex
1. Prologue: veglia

**Name:** Chris

**Title:** il suo cuore è il cuore di myr

**Fandom:** Wizards of Waverly Place

**Genre:** General

**Rating:** T

**Summary:** Maybe these people, who clearly love her, can help. [Justin/Alex]

……

_and I drive, alone with my mind_

_fighting thoughts of this kind_

_- another american folksong, william sroka _

……

Prologue: veglia

……

She'd be lying if she said she was doing this for anyone other than herself. Sure, it may seem self sacrificing on the surface. And yes, if anyone were to actually ask her she could say that it was better for everyone really to stop the whole thing before it started, but she won't.

They won't ask though. And Alex won't ever tell.

If there was another option here, if she had another choice, then she would be all over it. But there isn't, so here she is, her stomach churning and palms sweating.

Instead, she opens the book, the dark silence of the room, making the ancient leather binding crack with protest.

Running her finger down the page where she copied the spell from the Forbidden Spell Book, Alex lifts her wands and whispers the incantation, the words heavy and foreign on her tongue.

"_Veritas obliate_."

And the world goes black.

……

"Honey…Alex, neña, can you hear me?"

Blinking open her eyes, she focuses on the faces hovering above her. Each one looks more concerned than the last.

Sitting up is not an easy task; her arms feel like lead and her head pounds with the change in direction of blood flow. There's a ringing in her ears, and she rubs at them, the sound reduced to static, to try and feel somewhat more normal.

Whatever normal may be.

"Alex, are you alright?"

She looks up into kind brown eyes hooded beneath a worried, furrowed brow. They search hers, her face, all over, for any sign of injury. Seeing no cause for concern, they shoot back to her eyes, holding steadily.

"I-" Her voice cracks, throat clogged and scratchy. "I think so."

Collective sighs of relief surround her, four in all. She allows her eyes to dart from face to face to face, marveling that such a simple statement can have such a profound effect on other people.

"I just…" Pausing, she rubs her hands on the legs of her jeans, chafing the denim against her thighs so hard that they itch when she stops and no doubt will be red underneath the fabric. "I think something happened."

Someone else comes in the room, another guy, obviously older than the one already there. Kneeling in front of her between the other people surrounding her, he leans close to her face. It should make her pull back in discomfort. But despite the violation of her personal space, she doesn't feel anything other than perfectly safe.

Under the circumstances, it's a nice feeling.

Pale eyes narrowing, he tilts his head and regards her carefully. "Alex, what happened? What's the matter?"

She licks her lips and glances around. Everyone looks so worried, so concerned for her and she's touched. Even through the fear and the confusion and the unexplainable faint smell of smoke sticking to her clothes, she's not afraid.

Maybe these people, who clearly love her, can help.

"I don't remember."

More furrowing of brows, more creased lines above the bridges of noses. Looks pass between them and it feels like observing a game of charades with no hope of ever putting the clues together, pieces with no whole.

"You mean," says the older man, the one with the kind brown eyes, "you don't remember what happened in here?"

For the first time she looks around and absorbs the room she's in; the brick walls, the antiquey looking furniture, the shelves of books and odd little knick knacks, the high table in the corner with bottles and a small black pot and a small pile of ash on it.

She shakes her head, wonders what they're going to say, do, think.

"No. I don't remember anything."

……

_Short, but hey, it's only the prologue. _

"_il suo cuore è il cuore di myr" your heart is my heart_

"_veglia" wake_


	2. spazio vuoto

……

_close my eyes, let the whole thing pass me by  
there is no time to waste, asking why_

_- echo, trapt_

……

Chapter One: spazio vuoto

……

There's a lot of whispered conversation that she's not part of after that. Four of them stand in a corner of the room, speaking in quiet, fast voices and plenty of furtive glances in her direction. The other person in the room, a girl with long red hair, sits beside her on a small red bench and pats her hand consolingly.

As if she's going to believe that 'everything will be just fine' cliché from someone with a stuffed pony on her head.

And don't even get her started on the abundance of horseshoe jewelry.

Choosing not to focus on the weird looks that she is still getting, she looks around the room she's in. This is where she woke up, so obviously it stands to reason that looking around could only help jog her memory, right?

It's pretty, in a way. Almost like you'd see in the house of a little old lady, with a wide variety of knick knacks and ornate furniture and a ton of dried flowers hanging from the ceiling.

There's a book laying face down on the round table in front of her, with old, cracked leather and faded gold words down the spine. She picks it up, curious, and sees only the briefest glimpse of some symbol with sharp, angled lines before its snatched out of her hands.

She blinks up into wide gray eyes in a face set into pitch perfect incredulity. "What?"

"Just um," he stammers, and amnesia or not, she knows panic when she sees it. "That's mine. You understand." Placing the book behind his back, he attempts a smile, and it's only slightly less creepy than the nervous laugh he emits.

Okay.

"Alright."

He looks momentarily dumbfounded, turning in surprise to each of the other people in the room in turn, as if checking to make sure that it really happened and he wasn't merely imagining things.

"That's it?" he asks. "No argument, no protests?"

Is he for real?

Turning to the girl beside her, she can feel her eyebrows furrowing in confusion. Is that something she would do? All she gets in answer though is another astonished look.

So maybe her first assumption was wrong and he's not just paranoid.

"Is that…bad?" she tries, slowly.

The other boy, the younger one with the dark eyes, opens his mouth but a hand clamps over his mouth before any words escape his mouth.

"Um, Harper, why don't you take Alex upstairs and see if anything up there jogs her memory?"

The girl beside her, apparently Harper, wraps her fingers around Alex's wrist and begins to lead her toward the door. Tossing a look over her shoulder, she sees the book she'd had being placed in a small, ornate black chest, and her eyes fall on the large table in front of it to a small black pot and a pile of ash before the door shuts behind them.

……

"So…Harper, is it?"

She nods.

"Not to be rude or anything (this earns her another weird look) but…who are you?"

"Oh that's easy." She's all smiles and an open face and Alex (still getting used to that being her name), despite the bizarre situation, feels a little better having her around. "I'm your best friend."

Well that's nice.

Maybe they can work on the horseshoe thing.

Harper has shown her to her bedroom, and she stands beside her bed and rotates slowly, taking it all in. Pink, lots of pink, very girly, beads hanging from the ceilings, gorgeous antiquey looking lights, and art supplies. Lots of art supplies.

She picks up a paintbrush from the easel in the corner, running her fingers over the bristles. They're stiff at first, like they're new, but the splotches of purple down the handle would suggest otherwise. There's a picture on the canvas, but she's not sure about what it could possibly be.

The simple fact that she's looking at someone she made and can't remember is weird enough in itself, but being that she made it and can't even tell what it's supposed to be…well, that's actually a little scary.

Sort of like her entire life being a blank is scary.

And no one even knows how it happened.

"So…" Harper's voice breaks into her inner panic, and she looks at her to see a concerned, expectant look on her face. Like a puppy. "Anything coming back? Art, maybe?"

Alex shakes her head. "Still one big walking void."

"Hm." It seems Alex has stumped Harper, drawing the conclusion from her friend's pursed lips and her eyebrows drawn tightly together.

But then it's like the proverbial light bulb cord has been yanked, and Harper's face transforms, and 'Aha!' spouting forth from her lips and before Alex knows what's happening, Harper drops to her knees and thrusts her hand under the bed. She emerges with a light blue plastic box with writing on the side and a big grin on her face.

"If this doesn't jog your memory," Harper tells her, "nothing will."

Stepping forward, Alex rummages around in the contents, but nothing looks in any way familiar. It just basically looks like a bunch of random junk. Picking up the action figure with the green cape, she decides its boy junk. "I don't get it. Is this like my favorite stuff or something?"

With that hopeful smile still on her face, Harper shakes her head with such vigor that her dangly horseshoe earrings knock against her temples. "No, not **your** favorite stuff."

Oookay.

Alex turns the box to get at the big black letters on the other side and is pretty much flabbergasted to see that it says _Justin's favorite things from his room_ on the side in black marker.

Is this supposed to mean something to her? Everyone had told her that her name was Alex, not Justin. She's not even sure she's positive on which one of the guys she'd met downstairs Justin was.

"I don't get it."

And Harper's face falls.

"You take Justin's stuff when he annoys you," she says, like it's the most logical thing in the world.

Um, what?

"Why would I do that?" Alex mutters, more to herself than to the other girl, turning a worn paperback over in her hands.

"I don't know, that's just the way you guys are," Harper states. "Well, not Justin so much because Justin's really ethical and mature," her face goes all dreamy, "but you guys have always baited one another and this is just one example and-"

"Harper!"

Breaking off, she looks at Alex in confusion for a minute, then it gives way to sadness and Alex realizes that she must have said or done or looked some way like the old her, the real her.

"God, this is so messed up."

…….

"Knock, knock."

Alex looks up and sees Justin standing in her doorway later that night. He's the last to come up to see her and it feels…well she's not really sure how it feels, as she's going on secondhand information here, but for some reason she would have though he would have been up sooner.

"How're you doing?" he asks, voice soft, face unreadable.

She shrugs. How is she supposed to be doing? Before waking up on the floor a few hours earlier, she doesn't remember anything. She's 16 years old (so she's been told) but she knows nothing of her past.

It's…horrible. Terrifying. Daunting.

Lonely.

But there's no need to tell anyone that. The strange looks are already old. No need to add to them.

"I'm okay. I guess."

That last bit slipped out on its own.

But he doesn't comment on it. "I, uh, I would have come up earlier to check on you, but I was trying to figure out what caused all this." He emphasis the 'this' in his statement with a wave in her general direction, a sweeping movement that is both awkward and endearingly comforting at once. Not able to explain why exactly, it makes her feel better. Max, who spent a good hour in her room replaying elaborate tricks and pranks and general mayhem to her, had said more than once that Justin always fixes things. Justin fixes her problems, cleans up her messes.

It's feels a bit like having a safety net in place after the fall has already happened.

"So…" He sits on the edge of her bed, hand idly smoothing a wrinkle on her bedspread. She sits on the other side, combing through a hat box full of old notes and letters and drawings to and from people she can't place. She looks up at him, wondering what the hesitancy in his tone is all about. "I know this must be really weird for you; not knowing anything about your past, and there are all these people around telling you things about yourself that you don't remember…"

"Knowing they're my family but not feeling connected to them," she finishes and gulps audibly.

Justin flinches. Instantly, Alex feels a wave of guilt for her lack of tact. It wasn't a conscious thing-it had just come out.

"Sorry." Closing the lid on her box, she sets it aside and grabs the blue box Harper had shown her earlier and flips it open. "I think I should give these back to you before I remember why I took them in the first place."

Chuckling, he sifts through it, raises his eyebrow on a few of the things he finds. When he starts laughing, she gives him a confused look that just makes him chuckle harder. "Sorry," he gasps out, "I'm just imagining your face when you're back to normal and realize you gave me back three years worth of loot."

There have been a few comments like that now. Her mother saying she's 'a free spirit' and her father telling her that she'd always been 'mischievous' and 'impulsive.' Then there were Max and Harper's stories about pranks and now Justin is amused about her reaction to doing something she probably should have done before now.

Exactly what kind of person is she?

"Justin, can I ask you something?"

He sobers quickly, eyes widening and cheeks turning a light shade of pink before he nods.

As surprising as it is, he looks nervous, and that makes her pulse thread faster under her skin.

"Was I," she breaks off, unsure of how to phrase it right. "What kind of person was I? Or rather, am I?"

"You're a good person," he says, not missing a beat. But it doesn't sound like he genuinely means what he's saying. It just sounds like the automatic response you give to anyone who asks that kind of question; you look great, I love your hair, you're very nice-those kinds of answers.

But she wants the truth.

She gestures to some kind of award, a fancy looking medal on a thick blue ribbon. "Then explain this."

Shrugging, scoffing, he makes a 'be serious' kind of face. "You're my little sister. It's not like you've been out on some wild crime spree."

"That you know of."

Her comment stops him cold, which pretty much tells her what she needs to know.

Just great.

……

_Still a little on the short side, but school is kind of killing my free time right now, sorry. _

'_spazio vuoto' blank_


	3. mistero

……

_it's been a long night chasing ghosts, but at the most_

_it's been a rude awakening_

_-mine all mine, shedaisy_

……

Chapter 2: mistero

……

After her parents come in to wish her goodnight, Alex takes the time to rummage around in her closet, then her jewelry box. Obviously she loves clothes, the brighter the better, and there are enough accessories to start her own mall. She runs the chains, bead, scarves, through her fingers and wonders about them. Where she bought them, when, which ones are her favorites.

With a deep sigh, she sets them down and begins to get ready for bed. She finds pajamas in the top drawer of her dresser and starts to change.

And then something odd happens.

When she takes off her boots, she finds a long, thick stick, bright orange, stuck down inside one. She turns it over, trying to figure out a reason for having it, let alone why it was in that particular location.

What the heck is she doing with a stick in her shoe?

Opening the door, she goes toward the stairs. Maybe somebody else can enlighten her on her bizarre discovery.

At the top of the spiral staircase she hears voices floating up from the living room. Overhearing her name, she pauses, hovers just outside the line of vision of her parents and her brothers below her.

"So we're all agreed," she hears her dad say, "that we shouldn't tell her yet."

Something in her Alex's stomach lurches.

"I don't know, Jerry. I don't feel comfortable keeping something like this from Alex. She has a right to know." She can see the shadow of her mother on the wall, pacing the length of the floor. "What is something happens? She won't know how to react."

"We'll just have to watch her. One of us will be with her at all times. And if we can't, Harper can."

"But Dad," Max says, "Harper won't be able to help if Alex suddenly turns herself into a fish or something."

What?

"Well we're lucky that you guys are on Fall Break. One of you should try to be available in case something goes wrong." Alex can see his shadow stand up and stand beside the figure of her mother and watches his arm go around her shoulders.

She hears what she thinks is a snort coming, but she's not sure who it comes from. Then Justin speaks and she knows, somehow, that it came from him. "Yeah, we're all real lucky that Alex went and screwed everything up. Again."

Alex feels a sharp pain in her chest that corresponds to his words and the tone behind it. True, she doesn't know him well (sort of) enough to be positive, but she'd bet her life that the heft in his words mean, without a doubt, that he meant what he said. He blames her for what's happened.

And it hurts.

Who would have thought that she could get her feelings hurt by a guy she barely knows.

Trying to be as quiet as possible, she heads back to her room and finishes getting ready for bed. She leaves the stick on top of her dresser. Long after she lies down and attempts to sleep she's aware of it. Almost as if it's calling out to her.

Weird.

……

Alex spends a good half hour staring at the contents of her closet the next morning. What would she wear if she were really her? Picking idly at the hem of a brightly printed orange shirt, she thinks about whether or not she likes it.

Right now, she doesn't like it. She doesn't like a lot of what is inside the closet. It's all so bright and flashy and the patterns are enormous. Obviously she is, was-whatever, a person who likes attention. That has to be it. What else would attribute to neon colored tights?

There's a knock at the door and her mother peeks her head in. "Hi, honey. How are you doing this morning?"

She shrugs. "Okay, I guess. I don't really like my clothes. How weird is that?"

Her mom chuckles. "It'll come back to you." She moves to stand behind her, runs a hand down her hair. "Would you like some help?"

"No, I think I'll be okay," Alex says. "If nothing else I have pictures." She waves her hand at her desk where she's piled all the photographs she's been able to gather up from drawers and boxes in her room of herself.

"Okay. Your dad and I are going in to talk to Mr. Laritate today and tell him what happened, so you don't have to worry about school for a few days, alright?"

She has no idea who the guy with the two names is, but she nods anyway. So far it's just seemed better to go along with what everyone is saying.

Alex feels a slight twinge, somewhere inside at the thought.

"Okay."

Her mother rubs her shoulder and leaves, tossing a smile back over at Alex over her shoulder.

With a sigh she turns back to her closet.

……

Butterflies erupt in Alex's stomach as she makes her way downstairs for breakfast. She's not sure if she's entirely ready, but her stomach has been grumbling since she woke up from the two hours of sleep she managed to get. Through her walls, much thinner than they look, she had heard her brothers getting ready and heading downstairs, and now she can hear the chatter of a normal family meal going on.

Well, as normal as can be expected.

Her palms are a little bit sweaty and she rubs them on the legs of her jeans. She wanted to dress somewhat like the Alex everybody but her knows, she dug around for way too long and ended up settling on a tie-dye tee shirt with a butterfly on the front and a pair of fringed boots she saw in a lot of the more recent (she thinks) pictures. Despite all the evidence that she apparently loves jewelry, she had decided to forgo all the heaps of beads and bangles and the preposterous number of peace signs all together.

Hopefully it won't be that noticeable.

Even more nerves attack when Max looks up and sees her coming. He clears his throat in a very obviously trying to be inconspicuous way and all the talking stops, four pairs of eyes fixing on her.

"Yeah, that was subtle," she remarks and, to her amazement, everyone laughs.

Justin offers her a small smile. "You may not remember who you are, but at least you're still snarky. That's a good sign."

If he says so.

"So, Alex," her dad says with a big smile on his face, "what are you up to today?"

"Wait, Alex isn't going to school?" Max looks between her and their parents.

Giving him a 'duh' look, Justin stands and grabs his bag off the back of the chair. "She doesn't even know her middle name, Max. How can she handle school?"

Max shrugs, nods.

They all leave together in a group but Justin turns back and tells her that his cell number is in her phone-just in case she needs him.

Then he drops a stick out of his back pocket, looking more startled than she is to see it lying on the floor. "Um…this goes to my…ship in a bottle kit." He looks confused by his own words, so obviously he's a terrible liar, but she nods like she believes him.

"Yeah, you kind of look like the type who would build ships in bottles."

He looks offended, she thinks. She doesn't really know him well enough to be positive.

"I'll um, I'll see you later." And with that, he's gone.

……

She spends the time before her parents get home looking through her room again. Not knowing how long they're going to be gone, she goes as quickly as she can and finds nothing weird. Not really. Clearly the abundance of skull drawings and the dark themes of some paintings with her name on them could raise some eyebrows, but how bad can she be when there's pink fur on her walls?

That's when she remembers the room downstairs. The one she woke up in the day before. There was definitely some questionable stuff in there. She thinks. It wasn't as if she got a good look before she was escorted out.

But the door won't open. No matter how hard she pulls, it's not budging.

Frustrated, she smacks at the door but the only thing that does is hurt her hand so she goes back upstairs, grumbling.

An idea comes into her head on the way back to her bedroom.

She shouldn't…it's a bad idea.

The door to Justin's room is partially open and she lingers against the frame, listening to the reasoning going on inside her head. On the one hand, this isn't her room and she honestly doesn't know Justin well enough just yet to go into his room when he's not here. On the other…her entire past is a blank and she may be able to find some answers in here.

Quietly, she goes in and looks around, not daring to touch anything.

Action figures-lots and lots of action figures, comics, books, a model airplane, more books, DVD's.

It all seems perfectly normal.

Shrugging, and feeling a little guilty, she turns to head out and look through her own room again.

And she sees it.

All of the books on Justin's shelf are new, the bindings still glossy and hardly bent. They've been read carefully. Except one.

One book stuck in the middle of the second row is so old the letters on the cracked leather have faded, and the words on the cover have lost the glint that made them gold. The difference in appearance makes her want to examine it so she grabs it off the shelf and dashes to her room, closing the door behind her.

Page after page is the same; herbs and moon phases and spells.

Spells.

As she casts a glance at the stick on her dresser a heavy feeling settles in her stomach.

Spells. Wands. All the secrecy.

Everything inside her head flies apart as she realizes that her family practices witchcraft.

And she feels the inexplicable urge in her chest to run.

……

'_mistero' mystery. Yeah, that one's kinda obvious, huh?_


End file.
